"2000 BC: The Bruce Conner Story
Part II," the first major survey of the artist's career, opens October
8, 2000, at The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) at California Plaza (250
South Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles) and remains on view through
January 14, 2001. Spanning Conner's varied artistic production from 1954
to 1998, the exhibition includes assemblage, film, painting, drawing, sculpture,
collage, printmaking, and photography.

Examples of his intricate black-and-white mandala drawings
as well as his elaborate collages made from scraps of 19th-century engravings
are included in this exhibition. During the 1970s, Conner focused on drawing
and photography, producing life-sized photograms from the Angel series
(1973-75), ethereal images of Conner's own body floating on a black background.
He also created the 26 etchings that make up The Dennis Hopper One Man
Show (1971-73), based on a series of hallucinatory collages from the
1960s. In recent years, the artist has worked on a smaller scale, seen in
inkblot drawings such as Sampler (February 20, 1991).

Additional film highlights include a 8mm installation of
Television Assassination (1963-64/1995), based on footage of the
assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald that Conner filmed
directly off the television screen, and a newly restored print of Breakaway
(1966), which features the exuberant dancing and voice-overs of Toni Basil.
Looking for Mushrooms (1959-67), much of which was shot in Mexico,
will be presented both on video and on a rewinding Moviscop viewer that
visitors may operate themselves.

Conner first attracted public attention in the 1950s with
his nylon-shrouded assemblages -- complex sculptures of found objects such
as women's stockings, costume jewelry, bicycle wheels, and broken dolls,
often combined with collaged or painted surfaces. Simultaneously during
the late 1950s, Conner began making short movies in a singular style that
has since established him as one of the most important figures in postwar
independent filmmaking.

Publication

The exhibition is accompanied by a major publication that
includes essays by exhibition co-curators Peter Boswell, Bruce Jenkins,
and Joan Rothfuss. This fully illustrated 280-page catalogue includes a
bibliography, filmography, and exhibition history and is distributed by
D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, Inc.

Exhibition Tour

Prior to its presentation at MOCA, which is coordinated
by curatorial associate Colette Dartnall, the exhibition was on view at
the Walker Art Center (October 9, 1999, to January 2, 2000), Modern Art
Museum of Fort Worth (February 6 to April 23, 2000), and the M. H. de Young
Memorial Museum in San Francisco (May 21 to July 301 2000).